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A Little Less Waste – The S-1500 Chair Designed by Snøhetta for NCP

I often bring up the idea of combining different fields of design and somehow integrating them or collaborating to bring a fresh perspective on both sides of the equation. If a designer works with a maker for example, a designer is also out of his element and has to adapt his ideas to the practicalities of production. But there’s another step that’s often not thought about, the environmental consequences of our choices as creatives.

S-1500 is a chair designed by Norwegian design studio Snøhetta for chair manufacturer NCP. This chair is a structural redesign of Norwegian modernist Bendt Winge’s classic R-48 chair from the late sixties, which is also produced by NCP, and was a big hit in Norway. The R-series line of chairs had schools and offices in mind and has gone on to sell more than five million units in Norway alone. One thing that hasn’t been considered though is our use of plastic and how this might play a part on the environment.

For this reason Snøhetta and NCP looked for a better way, working closely with the innovative and sustainable fish farming industries to reuse the fishing nets, ropes and pipes that often have little use once they’ve been damaged or have become weakened. NCP found a method of grinding these in to a granulate that can be injected in to new shapes, producing a chair made from recycled fish farming plastic waste. What a brilliant idea.

Due to the materials used at sea the S-1500 chair naturally references and harnesses all the textures, colours in the North of Norway and feels right at home in this beautiful, natural landscape. Is something more modern just for the sake of it? What is the long tail to producing such objects? A very interesting topic and one I think we need to talk more openly about. Here are a few photos of this chair, more information can be found linked below. Enjoy.